The feeling of traveling in this current reminded Gylfie of a pale gray satin ribbon that Trader Mags had once brought for bartering. She had wanted it, but Madame Plonk had outbid her. The Snowy would fly with it on special occasions, and it would unfurl behind her, smooth and languid in the wind. But its texture was what had intrigued Gylfie. It was like touching the softest cool breeze. And for her that was exactly the feeling of the River of Wind.
For Soren, it brought memories of the down that Pelli plucked from her underfeathers for the three B’s. For Martin, it was reminiscent of the high summer hollow his family had, which was nearly above the tree line on the mountains. There was a special moss that grew there that was even softer than rabbit’s ear moss, and his mum would make their beds with it. For Twilight, it was like the echo of a song—a song from long ago. He could almost remember some of the words, but had no clue as to where they had come from. There had been a wonderful voice singing it, singing this song just for him. A voice like silk? Satin? Like liquid moonlight, it flowed, it curled around him and suffused him with a glowing warmth.
Overhead the stars drifted, and new constellations they had never seen before melted out of the night. Otulissa had been right. They barely needed to waggle a wing. This strong, warm, flowing wind pushed them along. They moved fast and effortlessly, traveling a great distance in what seemed like no time at all. They even took short naps. They were safe as long as they stayed in the central trough and avoided the edges. They did remain alert, however, to those edges as every once in a while a grim reminder of the danger that lurked within the windkins popped up—the mangled body of a seagull, the detached head of an eagle, and other assorted corpses that through some unknown process became slightly mummified, making them look all the more terrifying.
“It’s like the living dead,” Martin muttered as he caught sight of a tiny sparrow, its eyes frozen in horror in its stillfeathered face. They were all rather relieved that so far they had not seen the remnant of Mrs. P.’s tail.
“What’s that?” Ruby said.
“What?” Soren asked.
“Straight up,” Ruby replied.
Mrs. Plithiver braced herself between Soren’s shoulders because she knew what was coming—a maneuver only an owl could make because of the seven extra bones in its neck, which allowed it to swivel its head in a wide arc and flip it straight up; they all made the same movement at the same time. Now their faces were where the tops of their heads had been, seconds before. Mrs. P. looked up, too. How very odd, she thought.
“What is it?” Soren asked.
“Not a bird,” Otulissa and Twilight both said at once.
“No, definitely not a bird,” Digger replied.
“It’s not a living thing,” Mrs. Plithiver said. For had it been, she knew she would have detected the vibrations from the beats of its heart.
“But it’s beautiful,” Gylfie said as they all looked up at this colorful thing that danced and skipped above them in the eddies of the River of Wind.
It was triangular in shape and made of some sort of material—possibly parchment—that had been stretched over a frame. From the lower point of the triangle flew a tail, or perhaps it was a banner, made from brightly colored rags.
“Look! There’s another!” Twilight said, spotting a second such contraption below them.
“There are strings attached! They lead downward.” Coryn cried out. “Let’s follow the strings!”
“Follow the strings!” they all cried out.
CHAPTER TEN
Conversations with a Blue Owl
But your feathers—why are they blue?” Bell asked as she finished a winter-skinny mouse. Normally, she would have scoffed at such fare. But this was the first food she had eaten since she had been spun out of the scuppers of the gale. Until now she had been too weak to eat anything of substance at all.
“And why are your feathers brown and the ones on your face white?” the blue owl replied. Striga’s Hoolian had become more fluent as Bell, despite her condition, asked endless questions.
“Because my mum’s and da’s are,” she answered.
The blue owl churred softly.
“Oh, I get it!” Bell said, her dark eyes sparkling. “Your mum and da were blue. So that’s why you’re blue.” She seemed momentarily satisfied with this answer. But then the tiny delicate feathers on her brow began to pucker up. Oh, dear. Here comes another question, the blue owl thought.
“But I’ve never seen a blue owl before.”
“I think there must be a lot you haven’t seen,” the blue owl replied.
Bell nodded thoughtfully. “I guess so.” There was another pause. “Is there a lot you haven’t seen?”
“Well, I am older, of course. So I have seen more.” But, he thought, I have never seen a black-eyed owl. He resisted saying this, however. In this part of the world it would open up too many questions.
“Tell me, what have you seen?” Bell asked.
The blue owl sighed. He had seen so much but yet so little. There was no way he could explain. He believed she was what they called in this world a Barn Owl. He had found that with this inquisitive little owl it was best to answer her questions with as few words as possible. It was better to just let her fill in with her own notions and ideas. It had actually worked quite well. First, the little owl whose name was Bell had quite by accident given him a name. When she had asked what he was he had merely answered with the generic name “Striga,” which he knew his kind was called. She had assumed it was his personal name, and the blue owl loved it immediately that Bell had thus named him. He much preferred the name Striga to his real name, Orlando, which had always irked him. It was one of those fussy, overly fancy, typical court names. Through such conversations, the blue owl was never really forced to lie outright.
Bell began to make assumptions derived from the short answers he gave her. He had artfully led her into believing that he was from a very remote part of the Northern Kingdoms and was a Glauxian Brother. Talking passed the time, and she was a pleasant little owl. Her port wing was badly damaged, and he knew it would be quite a while before Bell could fly home. And she did miss her home. She often woke up in the middle of the day crying for her mum or da or her two sisters. The blue owl had become quite fond of the little one. He would be sad to see her leave. He assumed that some owl would come looking for her. He liked to hear her talk of the great tree, but often it caused her to cry. He believed it was the very same tree he had heard of in whispers back home about what were called the Theo Papers.
He now heard a fluttering outside the tree hollow as the little owlet ate the skinny mouse he had brought her. He went to the rim of the hollow and peered out. He had had a feeling for a night or more that there was something out there, someone watching this hollow. But all was still. It must be my imagination. Besides, I’m tired. So very tired. He had arrived only a few nights before from the terminus of the Zong Phong. It was amazing that he had found his way out of it at this end, for there were no qui guides, but the windkins did not seem as fierce here. He simply had been dumped out of it unceremoniously, onto the shores of the Guanjho-Noh. He then had to fly what seemed like a much longer flight than the one he had just completed to get to this forest. And face it, owls of his background were not much good at flying. Riding the Zong Phong was one thing, but flying without a current to carry one along was quite another. He had only just arrived in the midst of a gale when Bell had fallen from the sky. His recollections were interrupted again by a sound close by. He was right. Someone was watching them.
“I don’t believe it!” An owl with a huge face that gave the appearance of a ragged moon whispered to another Barn Owl with a large nick out of his beak. “A blue owl, I’ve never seen the likes.”
“Nor I, General Mam.”
“Nor I,” three other owls replied in turn. Two of these owls were Barn Owls, the other was a Burrowing Owl.
“What’s he got in there?”
“I think it’s a wounded
young owl who got tossed about in that gale,” said the Burrowing Owl.
“You don’t think it’s one from those chawlet practices you were monitoring, do you?” The owl with the huge face turned to the other three accompanying her.
The larger of the two Barn Owls replied, “Well, it’s a far piece from Silverveil to here in Ambala. But that gale was part of the westers, and its winds could have blown the young one this far. You never can tell.”
The moonfaced owl’s eyes gleamed darkly. “Stryker, are you thinking what I’m thinking?” Stryker was the only one of the three other owls who would know what she was suggesting. Of the three owls accompanying the moonfaced Barn Owl, only he had been in battle—not once but three times—against the Guardians of Ga’Hoole.
“Well, yes, ma’—I mean, General Mam. It’s almost too good to hope for.”
“This isn’t about hope, Stryker. This is about practical imagination. It’s about making things happen. Any fool can hope. But it takes brains to imagine. And if you can’t imagine, nothing will ever happen. I can make things happen. But I must admit, if it is indeed a Guardian owlet,” she let her voice dwindle to a lower whisper, “well, what sweet justice would be served.”
Nyra had not always felt the way she did about the role of imagination in her life. She had, in fact, thought it ridiculous and had often reprimanded her son, Nyroc (now called Coryn), for wandering off into all sorts of imaginative channels. But that was before she had discovered The Book of Kreeth—the ancient hagsfiend from the primeval world of owls. In this book she had learned of things that were unimaginable to ordinary owls. But Kreeth had been no ordinary owl: She had been a hagsfiend.
“Huh? I mean, huh, General Mam?” Nyra had lost Stryker on the sweet justice part.
She shook her head and with great sneering disdain said, “Don’t you get it? They took my son. My chick. Now I will take theirs. And I do think it is theirs. I feel it in my gizzard. My gizzard’s been feeling a lot better lately. It must be that herb mixture that you’ve been getting for me.”
Stryker wilfed a bit. He didn’t want to tell her that the last time he had gone to the herbalist in Kuneer, an Elf Owl, he had had to rough the fellow up a bit to get the medicine.
The moonfaced owl, Nyra, was the supreme commander of the Pure Ones. Stryker was her top lieutenant, although she had recently been thinking about replacing him. After too long a time, things were again looking up for the Pure Ones. The alliance with the wolves had proved to be a mistake, but one learns from mistakes. Stick to owls—down-and-out owls. A series of forest fires had also proved a boon for Nyra. Owl families had been split apart; orphans were available for the snatching. And what could be snatched at an early enough age could be trained, indoctrinated, gizzard-washed until they were pliant, docile, and perfect for her growing army of Pure Ones. Those who were not orphans but adults, hollowless adults who had been burned out of their homes and had lost their mates and families, could also be lured into the cadres of the Pure Ones, which offered support, the promise of leadership roles, and new responsibilities other than just the daily grind of providing fresh meat for one’s family. Many found this, if not a welcome change, at least a way to forget that once upon a time they’d even had families. Most were so grief-stricken that any memory of their former life was searingly painful.
So Nyra had offered an alternative: the Desert of Kuneer. No trees, no forest fires. When displaced owls asked where they would live, Nyra explained the joys of burrows, although cactus dwelling was available. It was the Burrowing Owl Tarn, a sergeant, whom she was thinking of to replace Stryker. Tarn had been the architect of the extensive burrow system in Kuneer. It was now inhabited by the largest force of Pure Ones Nyra had managed to muster in a long time. It would be tricky, though, promoting Tarn, a non–Barn Owl, to such a high position. Technically, he was not a Pure One, but it was Tarn who had dug out their first encampment in a remote region in the Desert of Kuneer, supervised its continued expansion, and introduced them to the herbalist and healer Cuffyn, an Elf Owl. The odd but useful little owl lived in an immense cactus with several good-sized hollows, where he practiced medicinal arts.
So successful had Nyra’s recruitment campaign been that she had even set a few fires herself in service to her cause—the rebuilding of the Pure Ones’ empire. She liked to think of it as an “empire” although it had never been associated with any particular part of the owl kingdoms or geography for any length of time. But things are going to be different now, she thought as she watched the hollow where the peculiar blue owl tended some creature. Yes, different! And if her hunch was right, whatever was in that tree would be just what she needed to shift the winds completely in her favor. Nyra would wait and watch. According to Stryker, the blue owl was going out more often to hunt. Nyra would just wait and continue to watch patiently. Over time, she had learned patience, which had given her cunning an edge, tempered it to a fineness as deadly as the sharpest battle claws. And when the time was right, Nyra would strike.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
The Sage at the River’s End
Following the strings, the owls descended through layers of clouds that had streaked through the River of Wind. Soon they spied high, jagged mountains, range upon range of icy peaks that appeared to march across this new continent that had appeared where the sea ended. Their eyes were fixed on the mountains directly ahead, and they neglected to see that just beneath them another landscape began to appear through a scrim of mist that was tossed up by the sea. Cliffs of pink-and-gray-swirled stone cascaded into the clouds of vapor. Occasionally, a notch in the cliffs revealed pine forests and boughs of trees laden with snow.
“Look! Look!” Twilight said excitedly. “Look down there!” The eight owls looked in the direction that Twilight was indicating with his starboard wing tip. Perched on a high rock outcropping was a large bird. The strings they were following down all seemed to stream from this one bird. Occasionally he would lift up into the air as if tugged by the contraptions at the sky end of the strings. As they descended, the owls could see that some of the strings were anchored to various rocks and the gnarled trunks of trees, many of which grew at odd angles from the rock outcropping. The bird was swooping back and forth, manipulating the various strings, when suddenly he grabbed what appeared to be a large hammer in his talons and flew up to a bronze disc that dangled from a vine. He hammered the disc and a resounding gong rang out, reverberating across the landscape to the distant mountains and causing clumps of snow to fall from the pine boughs.
“Welcome! Welcome! Hee naow, hee naow!”
“Oh, Glaux! He’s speaking Jouzhen…” Otulissa muttered. “Hee naow, zan li,” she answered.
“What’s she saying?” Gylfie hissed.
“This is so exciting!” Soren swiveled his head around, trying to take in everything all at once. There was so much to see. “Have you ever seen trees like these? I mean, they look like pine trees, but their trunks are as gnarled as an old owl’s talons.”
“But beautiful,” Gylfie said.
“Everything is so different,” Coryn said, his voice soft with wonder.
“Yes,” Digger replied. “Including that owl. He’s blue!”
Perhaps it was because everything did seem so different that at first they did not notice the strange hue of the owl flying before them, who was shouting with apparent great glee, “Hee naow! Welcome!” every few seconds.
“I mean, he is an owl, isn’t he?” Gylfie asked as she and the others alighted onto the rock ledge.
“Oh, yes, I am an owl. Welcome. I have been expecting you.”
They all blinked. “You have?” Otulissa said. The owl nodded. Otulissa then stepped forward and began to introduce herself and the rest with her rudimentary Middle Kingdom language skills. “Shing zao strezhing Ga’Hoole.”
“Oh, no need to speak Jouzhen. I have been studying Hoolian for many years in anticipation of this evening.” He spoke with a delightful musical cadence. Mrs. Plithiver found
herself swaying to its rhythm as if she were entwined in the strings of the grass harp, awaiting her cue to jump an octave or two.
“So you are the owls of Ga’Hoole, and I am Tengshu, the qui dong of the cliffs of the luminous pearl gates to our kingdom. Here the Zong Phong ends and the Jouzhenkyn begins.”
“Qui dong?” Otulissa asked. “What is a ‘qui dong’?” The words sounded so basic, yet so important. She wondered why she and Bess had not found them for the dictionary they had composed.
“Your interest in our language impresses me, pheng gwuil.”
Otulissa knew that “pheng” was the word for “honored,” and “gwuil” was the word for “guest.” “The word ‘dong,’” the owl continued, “is the word for ‘knower’ or ‘sage.’ But ‘qui’ is harder to explain in Hoolian, for I do not think you have such a contrivance,” he said, nodding toward the triangle and the string, which he was now winding in on a spool. As the colorful qui came closer, they saw that it was made of very thin parchment that had been decorated with beautiful designs.
“Contrivance?” Coryn asked.
“Yes, Your Majesty.”
Now they were all stunned. How did Tengshu know that Coryn was their king? Coryn made a point of never wearing any royal trappings, and he had even discarded the ceremonial cloaks that the old King Boron and Queen Baran had sometimes worn.
“But this contrivance,” Coryn persisted, “it might have an associated name that we may know.”
“But how could it have a name if it does not exist for you?” Tengshu asked.
Digger cocked his head. This was a most interesting philosophical question. There could be no name if there was no object to be named, and the eight owls plus one nest-maid snake had never in all their days seen anything like this contrivance, this “qui,” as Tengshu called it.
“This one is called the qui of the dancing frog.”